Huston Smith

Huston Smith

Huston Cummings Smith (born May 31, 1919) is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World’s Religions (originally titled The Religions of Man) has sold over two million copies and remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.

He taught at the University of Denver from 1944 to 1947; then at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for the next ten years. He was then appointed professor and chair of the philosophy department at MIT from 1958 to 1973. While there, he participated in experiments with psychedelics that professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (aka Ram Dass) conducted at Harvard University. He then moved to Syracuse University, where he was Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy until his retirement in 1983 and current emeritus status. At University of California, Berkeley he was visiting professor of religious studies.

During his career, Smith not only studied, but practiced Vedanta (studying under Swami Satprakashananda, founder of the St. Louis Vedanta Center), Zen Buddhism (studying under Goto Zuigan), and Sufi Islam for more than ten years each.

As a young man, he suddenly turned from traditional Methodist Christianity to mysticism, influenced by the writings of Gerald Heard and Aldous Huxley. In 1947, before moving from Denver to St. Louis, Smith set out to meet with then-famous author Gerald Heard. Heard responded to Smith’s letter, inviting him to his Trabuco College (later donated as the Ramakrishna Monastery) in Southern California. Heard made arrangements to have Smith meet the legendary author Aldous Huxley. Smith was told to look up Swami Satprakashananda of the Vedanta Society once he settled in St. Louis. So began Smith’s experimentation with meditation and association with the Vedanta Society of the Ramakrishna order.

Smith developed an interest in the Traditionalist School formulated by René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy. This interest has become a continuing thread in all his writings.

Thanks to his connection with Heard and Huxley, Smith went on to meet Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), and others at the Center for Personality Research, where Leary was Research Professor. The group began experimenting with psychedelics and what Smith later called “empirical metaphysics.” The experience and history of the group are described in Smith’s book Cleansing the Doors of Perception. During this period, Smith was also part of the Harvard Project, an attempt to raise spiritual awareness through entheogenic plants.

During his tenure at Syracuse University, he was informed by leaders of the Onondaga Tribe about the Native American religious traditions and practices, which resulted in an additional chapter in his book on the world’s religions.

In 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that the use of Peyote as a religious sacrament by Native Americans was not protected under the US Constitution. Smith took up the cause, as a noted religion scholar and, with his help in 1994, Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act Amendment, basically overturning the Supreme Court’s decision.